In From the Cold
by ChinamiMorimoto
Summary: Following the events trending as #shieldfiledump and #hydragate, Steve goes hunting for the Winter Soldier, goes looking for his best friend. What he finds is a very broken man. Meanwhile, other agents of SHIELD are picking up their own pieces. Since it's one of the few secure places left, everyone heads to Stark Tower. (Winter Soldier compliant, semi-AoS compliant, HoH!Clint)
1. Chapter 1

It was sometime around three in the morning. Steve had been wending his way down the Eastern Seaboard for almost a month, zigzagging and backtracking, following a feeble trail of blurry cellphone videos and hearsay in a self-financed attempt to track down Bucky. Now, tired and hungry and damp from an early summer rain, he shuffled into a near empty Waffle House in North Carolina and ordered half the menu. At the counter, a woman in pink scrubs was talking to the waitress.

"You know how I swear weird shit happens on the full moon? Yeah, well, I'd have sworn it was a full moon tonight until I got outside." She took a bite of hashbrowns. "This John Doe wanders into emergency around ten, no clue where he is or who he is or anything."

"Police bring him in?"

"No, no, he walked himself in. He was babbling in about four languages, seemed confused about the date too, we got him in a bay and he was pretty chill considering the fact he seemed to be having vivid hallucinations. We thought he was on drugs so we had to run a tox screen. Poor Mathew goes in there to draw blood and this guy flips his shit. Tore up half of emergency, punched a hole or five in the nurses' station, took a door off its hinges before security tackled him. Took all the security staff on that floor to hold him long enough to get some lorazepam in him and knock him out."

"Damn."

"I know."

"More tea?"

"Please. Anyway, after that, working theory changed from crazy druggie to some Navy SEAL or something back from the Middle East with one hell of a case of PTSD. That theory has the bonus of explaining why he's an amputee and where the hell he got such a fancy prosthetic. When I left, they had him unconscious, handcuffed to a cot, arguing about trying to get an MRI, make sure his brain is all together, but nobody can tell how to get the metal arm off a him."

Steve set his fork down and crossed the small restaurant. "I don't mean to intrude, but what hospital is this at?"

The nurse blinked at him. "Duke University Hospital. Buddy, if you're a reporter or a lawyer or something—"

The waitress smacked her hand on the counter. "Hang on, are you—? You can't be. But you are, aren't you?" She looked at the nurse while gesturing at Steve. "My grandmother was a Cappette."

Steve tried very hard not to sigh but wound up sighing a little anyway. "The man at the hospital is my friend and may be a threat to national security."

The nurse pushed her plate away. "Well, guess I'm going back to work."

"Thank you."

* * *

The moment Steve walked into the hospital, every eye turned to him. A little boy sitting on his mother's lap in a chair was staring open mouthed. After a moment of quiet, all the nurses moved in sync to point across the wreckage of half the E.R. toward the closed door of an examination room flanked by two nervous looking security guards. Steve nodded and made his way to the room. A young, redheaded doctor with the beginnings of what was going to be a nasty bruise forming on his cheek intercepted him at the door. "Sir, I—"

"I got the story from one of the nurses."

"Right, well, even so sir, or Captain, or how should I address you?"

"Captain is fine," Steve said impatiently.

"Why exactly are you here, Captain?"

"I know who your John Doe is, and I need to take him. For security reasons. So if you don't mind." He gestured at the door.

"Of course..." The doctor opened the door and followed Steve in.

Awake but staring blankly at a spot on the ceiling, Bucky was laying on a cot, ankles and right wrist shackled to the frame with padded cuffs. The other arm, the metal one, was lashed to the frame with a least a dozen jumbo zip ties. Steve shot the doctor a look.

"He broke the cuff," the doctor muttered, ghosting a finger against the bruise on his cheek.

"Right." Steve nodded and sighed then went to the cot. "Buck? You there?"

A muscle next to Bucky's eye twitched, then, slowly, he turned his head and managed to focus on Steve's face. He blinked blearily. "Steve...?"

"Yeah, Buck."

He blinked again. "...why are you so big?"

Heart tight, Steve still couldn't help but smile. "It's a long story." He looked back over at the doctor. "He—"

"He was delirious when he came in and we've had to sedate him. We have no idea what's wrong, his tox screen came back clear and we can't run the usual scans because of that arm. If we could take it off—"

"I don't think it comes off."

"What kind of prosthetic doesn't come off?" The doctor sounded dumbfounded.

"The kind that's way above your pay grade."

The frame of the cot rattled as Bucky noticed he was shackled and tugged at his cuffs. "Wha...? Why am— Steve? Did Hydra— Hydra..."

Bucky fell silent, his eyes glazed over, then snapped back to focus on Steve's face, and he started shouting in Russian, pulling roughly against his restraints. The doctor grabbed something off a tray, brushed Steve aside, and injected the contents of a syringe into a cath on the back of Bucky's right hand. After a minute of continued struggle, Bucky slipped into unconsciousness. The doctor let out a breath, looked at Steve, and gestured at the limp body on the cot. "Does he have insurance?"

Steve hesitated. "No."

"Well, somebody needs to pay for all this, but then, by all means get him out of here."

Steve scrubbed a hand over his face. "I need to make a phone call."

"Be my guest." The doctor left the room.

With an internal groan, Steve fished his phone out of his pocket and punched a number he'd really hoped to not ever need. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he listened to the ringback in his ear. After what felt like an eternity, the line picked up. "Do you have any idea what time it is, old timer?"

"You don't sound like you were asleep."

"That's not the point, Old Glory, you never call me. You never call anyone. It's nearly five a.m. What gives?"

"I need you to foot a bill."

"Ah, party get a little out of hand, run up your tab?"

"Stark."

"Don't you have cash?"

Steve glanced out the window in the door at the wrecked nurses' station. "Not this much cash and my S.H.I.E.L.D. credit card doesn't work anymore."

"Fine, fine. What am I paying for?"

"An E.R. visit."

"Yikes, what did you do?"

Steve's phone beeped in his ear, possibly with a money transfer. "It's not for me. I'll explain later. Also I might need to house a couple people at the tower for a while?"

"As long as that couple people includes you, my offer from New York still stands. I've linked your phone into my accounts. Tap on the little icon that looks like a wallet and pay for whatever."

"And I sort of need to buy a car."

"Buy all the cars you want, Cap."

"I should probably thank you for this."

Tony made a sound through his nose. "I'll just tease you about it for the rest of forever."

"Fair enough."

* * *

After a quick jaunt two miles down the road to a Ford dealership and coming back to pay the hospital bill, Steve buckled an unconscious and thoroughly sedated Bucky into the reclined passenger seat of a shiny new, bright red pickup truck. He had reluctantly tied Bucky's metal arm to the seat with rubber surgical tubing, just to be safe.

A nurse, a different one than before but also in pink scrubs, came out to the parking lot and pressed a bag of pre-filled syringes on him. "In case you have to knock him out again. This stuff, just jabbing him in a muscle will do. It's faster if you get a vein but..." She shook her head, morning sun glinting off a clip in her hair. "Last thing this country needs right now is Captain America running off the road 'cause a some crazy in the passenger seat."

"Thank you."

"Not a problem."

She went back inside. He checked his bike in the bed of the truck, got behind the wheel, and turned north. Ten hours and two shots of sedative later, Steve turned out of the city evening traffic into the Stark Tower parking deck. Leaving his bike to be dealt with later, Steve hoisted Bucky onto his shoulder and took the elevator up to the tower's private floors, pushed the first unlocked bedroom door he found open with a foot, and dumped his burden rather less gently than he'd meant to into the bed. He let out a breath, carefully smoothed a lock of hair away from the familiar face, brushed a thumb along the unshaven line of jaw, then jumped at someone clearing their throat behind him. He turned to find Tony, arms crossed, leaning in the doorframe.

"So, this is what Jarvis meant by 'The Captain seems to have brought in a potential security threat.'"

"He's confused—"

"By all accounts, including Natasha's lovely little press conference circuit, he knew exactly what he was doing when he was trying to kill, oh, everyone."

"Yeah, he sure did, but _at the hospital_ in North Carolina where I found him, he thought it was still the 1940s for a minute, then he started yelling in Russian. He's confused, unwell, and currently heavily sedated." Steve shooed Tony out into the hallway, followed him out, and shut the door. "Haven't you Hulk-proofed, anyway?"

"Yes, I have—Banner is asleep down the hall, by the way, yeah I know it's only like seven, he and I both have screwed up sleep schedules—but Hulk-proofed or not I don't want the fucking Winter Soldier in my tower."

"He's my friend."

"Uh, maybe he used to be."

The two of them started down the hall to the floor's common room.

"Whatever's happened to him, he's still my friend."

"Yeah, friends don't normally fire rocket launchers at each other. I don't want him here, this place just finished getting rebuilt from the chitauri bullshit."

"I just got here, I'm not leaving again right now, and even if I did, this is the most secure place to have him. Mama S.H.I.E.L.D. isn't here to clean up anymore, remember? Can you give him half a chance to heal?"

"Why should I?"

"How many third and fourth chances have you gotten, huh?"

"Don't start comparing your little boyfriend to me."

Steve half choked. "My _what_?"

"Oh-_ho_, have I touched a nerve?"

The elevator chose that exact moment to ding open and disgorge a rather ragged looking Barton. He stared at the two men in front of him, then pointed an accusing finger at Steve. "You, fuck you, thanks for the whole saving the world thing, but fuck you." He dropped his tattered backpack and bow on the floor, stalked to the nearest sofa, and lay down, either not seeing or ignoring Tony's cringe as he dirtied the white upholstery. "I was in goddamn Argentina, way down in Rio Gallegos, and I don't know why, but when you brought those fucking helicarriers down, all my fucking tech went dead. Phone, GPS, laptop, everything but my flashlight and my quiver bricked up. Even my fucking hearing aids. Fun fact, I'm damn nearly completely deaf. You know why you didn't know that? I have fucking fantastic tiny little in-ear hearing aids I wear all the fucking time, _that stopped fucking working_. Have you got any idea how paranoid that makes me? Don't answer that, I'm not looking at you. And I hope I'm shouting _obnoxiously_ loud."

Steve and Tony glanced at each other. Tony took a breath. "We'll finish this argument later." Tony moved around the sofa and pulled Clint's arm from over his eyes. "I'm getting you a drink."

"Water and food first. Then you're telling me exactly what's going on. _Then_ you are getting me very,_ very_ drunk off hard lemonade." He hid his face in his elbow again.

Tony went to order pizza. Not sure what else to do with himself, Steve brought Clint a glass of water. Clint sat up with a groan and took the glass. "Thanks"

"Are you okay?" Steve sat across from him.

"As okay as anyone would be after hitchhiking back from South America missing a sense they're used to having." He emptied his glass and leaned back, staring at the ceiling. "Was more than a little worried I'd get here and find a nine-eleven redux instead of a tower. Until I got here I hadn't heard from anyone. Everything I know about what happened comes from news channels on TVs in public places." He looked a Steve again. "Where's Nat?"

"No idea."

"Say again?"

With a slight jolt, Steve realized he'd been looking at the floor. He made sure to face Clint before speaking again. "I don't know where she is."

"Went off to figure out a new cover?"

Steve nodded.

Clint lay down again. "After I eat, I want internet."

The two blonds sat in silence on opposite sofas until Tony returned with pizza. After everyone had taken a few bites, Tony waved a hand to get Clint's attention, then, ever tactful, he asked, "So, did you go to a loud Lady Gaga concert or were you Born This Way?"

Clint dusted crumbs off his fingers. "Tony, please never make any hard of hearing friends other than me. The answer is 'neither,' though. I lost my hearing when I was ten, just woke up one day and everything was quiet. It wasn't _completely_ gone, I can still technically hear you if you speak loudly, but I don't get enough auditory information to understand what is being said. Everything is muffled, really muffled. You've both been in explosions, seems like somebody turned the volume down on the world and what you do get is distorted for a while afterword? It's like that."

"Hm." Tony leaned back in his seat.

"This month is the longest I've gone without average or better hearing since S.H.I.E.L.D. picked me up in my teens. I'm not sure if I'd forgotten how much I hate it, or if I hadn't realized how dependent I've gotten on my hearing aids, or both. Luckily, working in intelligence has kept my lip reading skills up." He inhaled another slice of pizza. "Don't get me wrong, nothing against the Deaf community, I just get really jumpy when I can't hear things sneaking up to kill me. On that note, Stark, if you sneak up on me before you've made me a new pair of aids, I will rip your throat out."

"I'm making you hearing aids?"

"You better be."

"Do you not have spares?"

"I do. None of the S.H.I.E.L.D. issue ones work and the only civilian pair I had were in my office at the Triscalion, which is now rubble according to CNN."

"You have an office?" Tony snickered, picturing Barton in a cubical doing paperwork.

"I _used_ to have a very nice office."

"Did you ever use it?"

"When I didn't want anyone to bother me, yes."

Steve set aside an empty pizza box he'd emptied by himself, grateful Clint's arrival had distracted Tony. A moment later, he realized he'd sent up that silent thanks a little early.

"Steve...?"

Both Steve and Tony looked toward the hallway. Following their gazes, Clint looked too, and his mouth fell open. Shuffling down the hall, leaning on the wall for support, left arm hanging limply at his side, was Bucky.

"Steve, I think—" He paused and blinked as Steve stood. He straightened up, looking for all the world like a chastised schoolboy. "Oh, uh, Mr. Joseph, I was just, just looking for Steve."

For a moment, Steve didn't say anything, then he cleared his throat and said gruffly with a touch of what might have been an Irish accent, "Well, he ent here. Go home, Barnes."

"Sorry, sir." Bucky turned and retreated to the bedroom Steve had dumped him in.

Tony gestured down the hallway. "What the hell was that?"

"He thinks I'm my dad." Steve headed after Bucky.

As Steve left, Clint pointed after him, looking at Tony. "Was that—?"

"Yeah, Cap dragged in the Winter Soldier. Yes, that's who shot Fury. Also happens to be Cap's buddy from the forties."

"Damn."

Steve slowly opened the door to the bedroom. Bucky was curled up in the corner of the small bed, his back pressed against the wall. He sat up quickly and stared at Steve. Steve shut the door behind him, shrinking the chink of light from the hallway until it vanished. For a long moment, neither of them moved. Bucky ran his knuckles along along the metal of his arm. "Who are you?"

The broken confusion in his voice squeezed at Steve's heart. He took a step forward. "It's me, Buck, it's Steve."

Bucky shook his head. Carefully, slowly, feeling like he was dealing with a stray dog instead of his best guy, Steve sat on the edge of the mattress. Bucky shrank back, then, haltingly, he reached out and touched Steve's arm as though to assure himself Steve was really there. Suddenly, he surged forward and grabbed Steve around the chest. Steve tensed, ready to fight him off, then he realized Bucky's lunge wasn't an attack, but rather a desperate child's move to cling to something comforting. He rubbed Bucky's back, his throat tight with memories of too many nights Bucky had held him like that, comforting him through his father's lashing out, his mother's illness and then death, his own feeble health. But Steve was alone with those memories. Bucky was blank. His steel-gray eyes were empty. For several long minutes, Bucky clung to him, breathing hard. The he stilled, sat up straight, and cocked his head to the side. "Wo sind wir?"

_Where are we?_

It took Steve a second to switch his brain over to German. "Gute Frage. Du bist in Sicherheit."

_Good question. You're safe._

Bucky made a sound through his nose, leaned back against the wall, took a breath to say something else, then didn't. He went blank again. Steve reached over and patted his knee. Eventually, Bucky shook himself. He looked at Steve, his eyes widened, he dropped his face into his hands, and his shoulders started to shake. He took a ragged breath and started mumbling apologies.

"Hey, it's okay, you're okay."

"I've killed so many people."

Steve hesitated. "I know."

"I thought— I didn't— I wasn't— They—"

"I know."

"I'm sorry."

"I know." Steve put an arm around Bucky's shoulders and let him cry; until it was back to Russian with a metal hand around his throat.

* * *

**A/N: Nice shiny new Winter Soldier compliant fic. This has nothing to do with with my other Avengers fics at all but I like it.  
I do happen to speak German, so there's likely to be much more actual dialog in German than in, say, Russian, and I think it's a reasonable language to have Bucky lapse into. **  
**I greatly appreciate reviews, they keep me writing, and I'm more than happy to answer any questions.**


	2. Chapter 2

Bruce woke up shortly after five in the morning. Still in his sweatpants and a loose t-shirt, he went out into the hall on a quest for coffee. He stopped halfway down the hall, his path blocked by a limp body on the floor. He sighed; it was Captain America, sprawled gracelessly on the carpet like a frat boy, snoring softly, shoulder propped against the door behind him. Bruce noticed the doorknob had been turned around so it locked from outside. He decided he was better off not knowing, stepped over Steve's legs, and continued down the hall. In the common room, he found Tony and Clint reclined haphazardly on sofas, surrounded by laptops, pizza boxes, and empty hard lemonade bottles. Vaguely wondering when Cap and Hawkeye had gotten there, he shook his head and went up a floor to the kitchen to make coffee. He wasn't the only one who was going to need it.

Bruce was still in the kitchen two hours later, reading a science journal and munching sweet potato chips when Clint dragged himself in. Before Bruce could say a word, Clint waved a hand in a fairly universal "shut up" gesture then continued in sign language: _ Don't talk. Can't hear. Hung over. Coffee?_

Having only understood about half of Clint's signing, Bruce pointed at the coffee pot. After most of a mug of coffee, Clint pulled himself up onto a stool at the island across from Bruce and reached over to steal a chip. Bruce pushed the bowl toward him and haltingly signed: _Hi. I know ASL not very much sorry._

Clint groaned and lay his head down. "At least you know some."

They sat together munching quietly for a while before Steve wandered in, rubbing at a crick in his neck that Bruce was completely unsurprised he had. Bruce set his tablet down. "Did the three of you go on a bender last night?"

"Huh?" Steve blinked at him. "Oh, no. Or, he and Tony might have. I don't know." He poured himself the rest of the coffee and took a sip. "I was trying not to get strangled. Why does this thing have so many buttons?"

Bruce got up to help Steve with the top of the line, Swiss-made coffee maker. "What do you mean you were trying not to get strangled?"

"Coffee, then explanations."

"Alcohol doesn't affect you, right?" Bruce crossed one arm over his chest. "Then why would caffeine?"

"Because I think it does."

Clint ate another chip, not even trying to catch any of the conversation going on behind him. Bruce leaned against the fridge. "Fine. But who was trying to strangle you?"

Steve rubbed at his neck more. "Uh, the Winter Soldier."

Bruce's eyebrows shot up. "He was here?"

"He is here; I brought him here."

"Why would you bring him _here_?"

"Where else would I bring him?" Steve drank more of his coffee and shrugged. "S.H.I.E.L.D.'s non-operational, he doesn't belong in any kind of ordinary prison. Is this Avengers' Tower or not? 'Cause that's what the sign says."

"You have a point." Bruce opened the fridge, pulled out a glass dish of lasagna, which he stuck in the oven to heat, and a bowl of tabbouleh, which he started eating with a spoon. "You get lasagna for breakfast. Why was he trying to strangle you? Other than the obvious explanation of 'he's a killer,' that is."

"What part of 'he's my friend' is so hard for people to understand?"

"The part where he tried to killed you, and Natasha, and Fury, and—who's the guy with the wings?—Sam, and a whole bunch of other people."

"Yeah, well, you broke Harlem. And a helicarrier."

Bruce pointed at him with his spoon. "You've crashed three at once. Also that sort of wasn't my fault."

"Not Bucky's fault either."

Bruce opened his mouth, shut it, then shrugged and ate another bite of tabbouleh. "Point taken. Where'd you find him?"

"An E.R. in North Carolina."

"Barton help you bring him in?"

"Actually, he walked in, in the middle of Stark berating me for bringing Bucky here."

"Why can't he hear? I feel weird talking like he's not in the room but..." He looked at Clint slumped on the counter with his face in the crook of his elbow. "Was he in an explosion?"

"No, apparently he's been hard of hearing since he was ten."

"Really?"

Steve shrugged. "That's what he said last night. Apparently he had S.H.I.E.L.D. issue hearing aids that went dead along with all his other gadgets when S.H.I.E.L.D. fell apart."

"Hm. On the subject of gadgets, how much do you know about your buddy's arm?"

"It hurts when around your throat but it doesn't beat Tony's Hulk-proofed doorjambs. And it prevented the E.R. from giving him an MRI. Other than that, I don't know anything."

"It's just, you know I have a side interest in biomechanics and the like, which includes orthotics and prosthetics." He scraped some dregs of tabbouleh together, spoon clinking against the bowl. "Actually got an email from Wounded Warrior Project a while back even though that's not my usual field. No one has anything like what he's got, just based on what little I already know. I'm particularly curious about the neuro-interface—"

"Doctor," Steve looked at Bruce over his coffee, "I don't know anything."

Tony appeared in the doorway, his hair sticking up at odd angles. "Tell me there's coffee."

Bruce reached behind Steve for the carafe, poured a mug, and held it out to Tony. "And there will be lasagna in about five minutes."

"Mm." Tony sipped his coffee appreciatively. "You are a much better housewife than Pepper, you know that?"

"She's a CEO, that doesn't generally coincide well with housespouce."

"Neither does multi-disciplinary physicist." Tony put a hand on Clint's shoulder, causing him to look up. "You alive, Angry Bird?"

"Alive, headache-y, light sensitive, glad to have the world on mute for once, but alive."

"Great."

Clint returned to his elbow.

Tony shrugged and looked at the other two men. "And now we know why he's always Nat's designated driver."

Bruce set aside his now-empty bowl. "I dunno, there are a lot of empty bottles downstairs."

Tony shrugged again, sipped his coffee, and looked at Steve. "How'd you know where the kitchen was."

"I didn't." It was Steve's turn to shrug. "I followed the smell of coffee."

After the three of them who weren't vegetarian had had lasagna, Steve made a peanut butter and honey sandwich, took it downstairs, and carefully let himself into Bucky's room. Bucky was flat on his back in bed with his left hand held toward the ceiling, watching his fingers flex. What had been a nice glass and metal desk the night before was now a pile of ragged shards and twisted aluminum. Bucky lowered his hand and sat up. Steve held out the sandwich on its paper plate. It was the least weaponizable meal he could think of. Bucky took it and ate voraciously then let the plate fall to the floor. Steve sat in the as of yet still intact desk chair. "Can I ask you some questions?"

Bucky nodded.

"What's your name?"

He opened his mouth, shut it, then frowned. "I don't know."

"What year is it?"

"Nineteen..." he shook his head, "seventy-six?"

"Where are we?"

"I have no idea."

"Who do you work for?"

Bucky shrugged. "I don't know. I—do I even have a job? I don't—I can't remember anything." He paused. "I don't know who I am. I don't know." He looked up at Steve, on the verge of hyperventilating. "Do you know?"

"Yeah, I know."

"Who am I?"

Steve took a breath. "Your name is James Buchanan Barnes, and you're my best friend."

"I don't know who you are."

"I know." He hesitated then continued. "You're suffering from brain damage of some sort, it's messing with your memory. I honestly don't know if you're going to remember this conversation five minutes from now but," he leaned forward and took Bucky's right hand in both his own, "I promise I'm going to find a way to help you. Okay?"

"Okay." Bucky nodded then glanced at the remains of the desk. "Did I do that?"

"Yeah..." Steve stood up, grabbed the trashcan from the corner, and carefully started clearing up the broken glass and metal. The last thing he needed was to provide the Winter Soldier with improvised weapons whenever Bucky started fragmenting again. "You want more to eat?"

Bucky nodded.

"How much more?"

"A lot more."

* * *

In his workshop, Tony tinkered with a wireframe blueprint while watching security feeds of Steve making a stack of sandwiches, Clint asleep on a couch, and Barnes staring off into space. Bruce was in the room with him, so he didn't feel the need to creep on him like he was doing the others. The door to the workshop opened, Maria Hill strode in and went to lean with faux nonchalance on Tony's workbench. "So I get here, and Jarvis tells me that you could use my expertise up here. Given the many potentially questionable things I have expertise in and the many even more questionable things you tend to get yourself into, I'm a little bit worried."

"Hm, I hadn't even asked him to get you. Good thinking, Jarv."

"You're welcome, sir."

"Anyway," Tony collapsed the wireframe he was working on, "your various expertise could prove valuable on a couple of little issues we've got. Number one is a very cranky, hungover, deaf Barton—"

"Barton's hard of hearing, not deaf; yes, the difference matters—hang on, is he here?"

Tony pointed at Clint's unconscious form on the video feed. "Showed up last night. Other issue is that Mr. Rogers also showed up last night and he brought a new neighbor with him."

Maria crossed her arms. "Would you care to clarify that?"

"Captain America has the Winter Soldier locked in one of my guest rooms." Tony pointed at a different feed.

"Well, that's...not what I was expecting."

"Yeah, me neither, and believe you me I'm not a fan of having the bastard who shot Fury in my tower but, as Capsicle is quick to point out, there's not really anywhere else to stick him. You have a psych degree of some kind, right? Mind trying to at least partially defuse the ticking time bomb Rogers is currently making sandwiches for?"

Maria took a step toward the screen, watching as Barnes suddenly grabbed an alarm clock and threw it viciously against the wall. "If that's even possible."

* * *

**A/N: Reviews appreciated, questions welcomed.**


	3. Chapter 3

When Steve came back down from the kitchen, he was intercepted by Maria. He blinked. "Agent Hill."

"Not an agent anymore."

"Right. Well, uh, if you'll excuse me." He tried to get around her with his stack of sandwiches.

"Hold up, Captain." She caught his arm. "Stark wants me to evaluate Barnes."

"I really don't think he's up to that."

"Which is exactly why it needs to happen. Tony's got security feeds routed to his workshop, I saw. Barnes is clearly unstable. He's dangerous—"

"Which is why I'd rather not put you, or anyone else, in a room with him."

"Steve, I know this is personal for you, but tea and sympathy and sandwiches aren't going to fix seventy years of God knows what got done to him. You are not trained to handle this kind of severe psychological damage and we don't even know what kind of physical damage there may be."

"Maria, are you a doctor?"

"Well, no, but—"

"Then you're no better than me."

"I have a psych degree. Let me come in with you."

Steve glanced between Maria, the plate of sandwiches, and the door down the hall. "Fine."

"Thank you."

As soon as Steve opened the door, the now badly battered alarm clock bounced off the frame, accompanied by a barrage of German profanities. Steve quickly shut the door again. Maria raised an eyebrow at him. He sighed. "Do you speak German?"

"Ja, Kapitän."

"Gut." Steve opened the door again, leading with the sandwiches. "Willst du Frühstück?"

_Do you want breakfast?_

Standing in the middle of the room, Bucky eyed the sandwiches with suspicion. Steve smiled hopefully. Bucky grabbed the plate and retreated to the corner of the room, reminding Steve once again of a touchy stray dog. His eyes flicked to Maria. She stepped forward. "Guten Morgen."

Bucky pressed himself against the wall. "Wer seid ihr? Was wöllt ihr?"

_Who are you two? What do you want?_

Maria sat on the floor and responded in German. "_My name is Maria, this is Steve. I just want to ask you a few questions, is that okay?_"

For a moment Bucky looked calculating. "_I'll talk to you, miss, not him._" He glanced at the sandwiches. "_And you can't expect me to eat th__e__se with nothing to drink._"

Steve and Maria had a silent staring match, then Steve left the room and headed back to the kitchen.

* * *

Twelve hours later, the sun had set, Maria and Steve had been in and out of Bucky's room all day, Maria had determined that Bucky was certifiably unstable and really needed to be looked at by a medical doctor. She'd set Jarvis on a hunt for an MD with the necessary qualifications. Bucky had spent most of the day alternating between being a near total amnesiac and a thoroughly indoctrinated Stasi agent who didn't like to talk to men. He'd flicker through other places in his memory for a few minutes at a time like he had been doing the night before. Finally, he'd fallen asleep. Maria locked the door and looked up at Steve. "You are emotionally exhausted, and I don't need my psych training to figure that one out. Take it easy, try not to worry about him for a little while. Sleep, or something."

"I'll try."

She clapped a hand on his shoulder. "I'm going to go call Pepper, and then get take out. I think I'm staying the night here."

"Sounds good."

"Go relax." Maria headed down the hall, pulling her phone out of her pocket as she walked. "Hey, Pepper. Yes, I know what time it is in Vienna, and I don't care. There are things happening you need to know about and I don't trust any of these men to catch you up."

In the workshop, Bruce snickered at the security feed. He turned to Tony. "She has a point, you know."

"Wasn't paying attention."

"Of course you weren't. What are you doing?"

"Frowning at the stats Jarvis has picked up on Barnes. His vitals all look to be within the normal range, which is good. Still got nothing on his brain. Don't have much on that arm. I'd like to get him down here so I can figure out the tech he's got going there but he's way too nuts for that. Come here, you've got more experience with this than me."

"Wounded Warrior Project emailed me _one_ time and I did a little reading up." Bruce obediently moved to look at the display called up on the table top in front of Tony while Tony moved back toward the monitors relaying the video feeds from upstairs. There was a ballet-like grace to the efficiency they'd learned to move around each other with in the workshop. The lab. It was a multi-functional space.

Tony tapped on his chin with a pen, scanning the video screens. "Hey! Twitter's awake!"

"What?"

"Barton. Hawkeye, bird, Twitter—nevermind."

"Oh, yeah, he's been up for hours. Been online ever since, making up for lost time and lack of intel I guess."

"Probably."

"Aren't you supposed to be building him something?"

"Ah shit." Tony pulled up another wireframe. "Yes. Yes, I am."

A while later, Maria swung by with Chinese food. Shortly after that, the rest of the tower went to bed. By one in the morning, Tony and Bruce were both dozing at their workbenches. A loud, urgent-sounding beep came through the speakers in every room of the tower, followed by Jarvis's voice. "Sergeant Barnes has escaped."

Tony sat up so quickly he smacked his head on a lamp. Bruce halfway fell off his stool. In their respective rooms, Steve and Maria had each rolled out of bed and were gearing up like the diligent soldiers they were. Even Clint was responding, Jarvis having significantly upped the volume in his room, cut the lights on, and put his message up on the screen built into the window. Within minutes, everyone was gathered in the hallway outside of Bucky's room. Maria looked at Tony and, for Clint's benefit, signed as she demanded, "I thought you said he couldn't break out, you'd Hulk-proofed the tower."

Bruce frowned slightly, noticing that Maria had just gestured at him to indicate "Hulk," and he wasn't sure how he felt about that. Of course, he mused, depending on how good her sign language was, that may have been by far the simplest way to get the point across.

"He didn't break out." Steve bent down and picked up the remains of the alarm clock. "He picked the lock."

Maria quickly interpreted Steve's words into ASL, knowing from past experience that Clint's general grouchiness and paranoia from being denied his hearing for more than about an hour got significantly worse when he had to try to follow fast, multi-person conversations, and no one had time for his touchiness right now.

"Well that's just great," Tony spat. "What now, we go catch him?"

"I would highly suggest it," Jarvis responded.

"I should stay here," Clint said, putting a hand over Maria's to still them. "Barnes is fast and when he thinks he's Hydra, he's ruthless _and_ psycho and I don't trust myself right now to do the rest of you any good. I can keep an eye on things here."

"I should stay too." Bruce tugged absently at his sleeve.

"In that case," Maria pulled out her phone, "Steve, Tony, suit up, get out there and catch up to him. I'll give the local authorities a heads up."

"Don't hurt him," Steve said as he made for the elevator with Tony.

Maria ignored Tony's derisive snort. "Non-lethal force only, copy, Captain."

As he and Iron Man hit the streets, Captain America cursed the fact that even in the small hours of the morning, New York was busy.

On the phone with NYPD, Maria hesitated half a breath. "Yes, subject is armed. No it's not a gun. I'd call it a blunt force weapon."

There was a clear trail of smashed street venders' carts and traumatized pedestrians for a few blocks, then it got harder for Steve and Tony to follow where Barnes had gone. Even with NYPD sending them every sighting they got and Jarvis relaying Bruce's predictions of paths Barnes could take and Clint and Maria's findings from the security cameras they'd hacked into all over the city, the trail went cold long before sunrise. Tony landed on the sidewalk. "Well, this sucks."

"Yeah..." Steve said, not really listening to Iron Man. He let out a breath and looked up at the nearest street sign. After a moment, he had a thought and took off down the street at a run.

"Excuse me," Tony said, flying after him, "but where the hell are you going?"

"Home."

"The tower is the other direction, Cap."

"I mean my old home, Brooklyn."

They stopped in front of an old walk up with weathered plaster that had recently been repainted. Steve looked up at the building. Tony looked at the building, then at Steve. "You used to live here? And it hasn't been condemned, or made into a museum?"

Steve didn't intend to answer that, and a woman's scream from inside gave him an excuse not to. They ran inside and up to the fifth floor where a young wiry-haired woman wrapped in a towel was standing on the landing looking horrified. She saw them, pointed to a door that had the distinct appearance of having been kicked in, and started shouting at them in Spanish. Steve went into the open apartment, leaving Tony to deal with the woman it belonged to. He had been right that this was where Bucky would go, a haven of familiarity in a changed city, but it wasn't Bucky Steve found in the apartment. The Winter Soldier kicked at him before he could get his shield up, dirty bare foot connecting hard with his ribs. He grabbed an elbow in time to prevent it from smashing into his nose then blocked the swipe of a large kitchen knife with the shield and shoved, sending the Winter Soldier stumbling backward. This was worse than fighting him on the helicarrier had been. This time, Barnes had no armor, he was in sweatpants and a tanktop and Steve could see the scars around the edge of the metal on his shoulder. Steve lifted his shield, ready for another attack, but a small projectile shot across the room and struck Barnes in the neck. He swayed and collapsed to the floor. In the doorway, a small firearm folded itself back into the wrist of the Iron Man armor. "Before you get your panties in a bunch, it's a tranq dart."

Steve let out a breath and lowered his shield. He ran a hand over his face and let out a short laugh that sounded strained and demented even to his own ears. He laughed again and then he couldn't stop laughing even though he hated it. He leaned against the wall and slid down it. Then the laughing turned into panicky crying and he still couldn't stop. "Wh-what am I even doing? I just chased my best friend from Manhatten to Brooklyn on foot, then he tried to kill me—and it's not the first time he's tried to kill me—and then you shot him." Another bubble of laughter made its way out of his mouth. "This is insane."

"Cap," Tony said, lifting his visor, "are you okay?"

Steve shook his head.

"Well, you need to be. Hey, look at me." Tony leaned over him. "Your buddy's a basket case right now and that sucks and, yea,h he keeps trying to kill you but he's brainwashed, right? People do crazy shit when they're brainwashed. Remember what happened with Barton? When Loki was in his head he intentionally pissed off Banner, which is pretty damn stupid, then he tried to kill Natasha, and I'm pretty sure the two of them are fucking so there you have that. Now let's get you and the bionic man over here back to the tower so I can throw money at this until it's better. Now, please, before I have to explain to a woman in a towel why Captain America is having a nervous breakdown on her floor."

When they got back to the tower, they locked the still-unconscious Barnes back into the same room as before, now devoid of everything but the bed. Steve wasn't happy with the set up but there wasn't much he could do about it. He was vaguely aware of Maria telling Tony Pepper was on her way back from Austria. He heard Tony objecting that Pepper didn't need to come; then, drained and still borderline sleep deprived, Steve passed out on the couch.


	4. Chapter 4

Steve was still asleep on the couch when Maria left to pick Pepper up from the airport around noon. By the time Maria got back from the airport with Pepper, he was no longer on the couch. On a hunch, Maria went to Barnes's room. She cracked the door open and was met with the sounds of sobbing and tortured screams. She threw the door open, hand going for her gun. Steve looked up at her from the floor. "He's asleep."

Barnes was in the bed, curled into a tight ball, his body shaking. He lashed out and hit the wall then curled up again, crying all the while.

"I can't wake him up."

"This cannot be good for your emotional health." Maria pulled the Captain to his feet. "There's nothing you can do for him right now. He's having night terrors. In some ways they're more like sleep walking than normal nightmares, when he wakes up he probably won't remember having had them. C'mon, help me get Pepper up to speed."

After Pepper was caught up, she stayed sitting at the kitchen island with Steve even after Maria had left. She reached across the island and squeezed Steve's hand. "Are you okay?"

"People keep asking me that."

"Well, you're going through a lot right now. You've been going through a lot for at least a month."

He sighed. "Yeah, I'm not okay." He traced an old water ring on the countertop with his finger. "This whole thing is my fault. He fell—literally fell—back into Hydra's hands because I screwed up. I was in charge of taking Hydra out in the first place and that didn't work either."

"Steve, suped up as you are, you are only one man and, as I often have to remind Tony, one man can't be expected to do alone what reason says hundreds would be hard-pressed to do together. You did the best you could with Hydra, and it worked pretty damn well for an awfully long time. As for him ending up in Hydra's hands, I wasn't there, I don't know, but I highly doubt it's all your fault. Don't blame yourself so much. Everything I've ever heard about you tells me that all you ever do is your best. That's all anyone can ask of you."

He shrugged one shoulder. "That doesn't fix anything."

"Neither does you beating yourself up." She stood and opened the fridge. "Here, help me make lunch? I'm not much of a cook but I find trying can be good for stress."

* * *

Downstairs in the workshop, Tony, in all his flippant glory, was mostly unintentionally winding up an impatient Hawkeye. Clint smacked his hands on the surface of the work bench. "Stark, this is serious."

"I know it's serious, I'm taking it seriously." He turned away but kept talking.

"Look at me when you're talking to me!" Clint shouted.

Tony turned back around quickly. "I'm sorry, I am sorry. I forgot. Okay? I forgot. I suck at remembering people things. And I wander, especially when I'm working. And I am working, right now, on making hearing aids for you that are at least as good as what you're used to. This is not my usual field, I'm building upon designs I got online. It's been a day and a half. I'm working on it. I need maybe one more day. You've survived for a month, I think you can handle one more day. In the meantime," he held up a finger and picked a smart phone up off the bench and held it out, "I got all the data off of your old phone and transferred it to this one. Ought to be like nothing ever happened."

"Thanks," Clint said sharply, grabbed the phone, and made for the elevator. Once the doors had closed, he powered the phone up with a sigh. It lit up, vibrated, and probably chirped, not that Clint had any way to be sure. The lockscreen came up with his same old wallpaper: one arrow split clean in two by another, both of them sticking out of a tree. It wasn't a stock photo. He punched in his passcode. He had sixty-two unread texts, a hundred and twelve unopened emails, and twenty-seven missed calls. He frowned and stepped out of the elevator. Most of the emails were from listserves. Fourteen texts were from Natasha, all over a month old. Another seven were from Maria. The other forty one were from various panicking agents. He looked at his missed calls. One was from a number he didn't know. He stopped dead in the middle of the kitchen, causing Steve and Pepper to look up at him from their anti-stress cooking in concern. The other twenty-six calls were from Agent Coulson. He chucked the phone at Steve. "Call him back!"

"What?" Steve looked down at the phone he had easily caught. "Oh."

Anxious, Clint hovered around Steve as he hit the return call button and held the phone to his ear. The line picked up and Steve was treated to the muffled sounds of a room full of people being told to shut up before a tired, hopeful, and very familiar voice said, "Clint?"

"Steve Rogers, actually."

Clint was staring at Steve so hard Pepper thought the archer was going to explode. She put the lid on a pot.

"Steve?" The frown was audible in Coulson's voice. "Why do you have Clint's phone?"

"He threw it at me. He's here," Steve added hurridly, "he just can't really use the phone right now because he can't hear."

"Where is 'here?'"

"The tower."

"Stark's?"

"Yessir."

"I'll be there in two hours."

The call ended abruptly. Steve looked at the phone then at Clint. "He says he'll be here in two hours."

* * *

A small, black quinjet landed on the tower's helipad. The back ramp lowered and Coulson, trailed by two slightly bewildered looking young brunets, disembarked. Clint broke away from the huddle he, Bruce, Maria, Pepper, and Tony had been in by the door, strode across the pad up to Coulson, smacked the older man across the face, then grabbed him by the tie and kissed him—hard. The jaws of everyone else on the roof dropped. Still standing in the ramp of the jet, Fitz, one of the two brunets, looked to the other in utter, dumbfounded confusion. "I thought he'd been seeing some cellist."

Simmons put a hand to her mouth then leaned into Fitz to answer him. "You play cello with a _bow_."

Clint pulled away, leaving Coulson stunned, then shoved him. "Don't you _ever_ fake your death again, you sonofabitch!"

Coulson held his hands up placatingly. "I didn't fake it."

"You don't look very fucking dead."

"Well, not anymore." Coulson started signing as he spoke. "It's a long story, I—"

"It had better be a _damn_ good story, Philip." Coulson started to sign something else but Clint gabbed his wrists. "Oh, no. You listen here. Three years. Three long fucking years I've thought—" He swallowed hard and let go of Coulson's wrists. "I thought you were dead. I went to your funeral, brought flowers to your grave every single time I had any excuse to be in the area! I have been _grieving_, Phil." He took a shaky breath. "And I didn't tell a soul about us because you asked me not to and you were dead and I was going to keep my word until _I_ died out of respect for you. I oughta kill you myself right now!" His voice cracked, tears started falling, and he shoved Coulson again. "Why didn't you fucking tell me?! I wouldn't have leaked, you know that! Fucking hate you." He grabbed Coulson by the back of the neck and kissed him again, then stepped back and fumed for a moment before siezing Coulson's tie and yanking. "What the fuck is wrong with you?!"

Coulson took a deep breath. "Can we finish this in private?"

Clint hesitated, grabbed him by the arm, and dragged him inside. The group around the door parted to let them through. No one said a word. Maria let out a breath. "Barton is gonna kill me."

Pepper looked at her. "Why?"

"I knew Coulson was alive."

Approaching the group with Fitz by her side, Simmons gestured at where the two men had been standing. "Did you know about, well, all that?"

Maria shook her head. "Not a clue."

Tony put his hands in his pockets. "Well, there go my fantasies of Black Widow and Hawkeye breeding a race of super babies."

Everyone stared at Tony for a moment. He shrugged. Marria cleared her throat. "Anyway, Fitz, Simmons, you know who everyone here is; everyone, Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons. Simmons, you're a medical doctor, we have someone we could really use for you to take a look at."

Simmons blinked. "Alright, uh, where are they?"

"Inside with the Captain." Maria opened the door.

* * *

**A/N: I don't ordinarily ship Clint and Coulson but I am, mostly just so I can have this fight. I also just read about half of the toasterverse fics, which is probably contributing to my shipping. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, I highly suggest googling toasterverse, the first few fics in the series are hilarious.  
As always, reviews appreciated, questions welcomed.**


	5. Chapter 5

Maria knocked on the door, a moment passed, and Steve stepped out, closing the door behind him. "Hey."

"Steve, this is Jemma Simmons, she's a biochemist come medic on Coulson's team. Simmons, Captain America."

Simmons bobbed in a kind of half curtsey. "It's an honor, really, sir, to meet you in person."

Steve nodded. "Good to meet you, too."

Maria nodded to the door. "Is he where Simmons can take a look at him? Because he could sure use a doctor, and here we have a S.H.I.E.L.D qualified doctor."

"Yeah, he's confused and irritable, doesn't know where or when he is, but he's not violent right now." He opened the door and let Simmons enter ahead of him.

Barnes looked up from where he was sitting on the floor with his back against the bed. Simmons smiled her best reassuring doctor smile and lowered herself to the carpet with the medical kit Maria had produced from some corner of the tower. "Hi, I'm Jemma." Barnes blinked at her. "I'm a doctor and I hear you've had a rough few days. Would you mind if I take a look just to make sure you're alright?"

He considered her for a moment then shrugged one shoulder. "Sure."

"Great."

* * *

Downstairs in the workshop, Pepper set a mug in front of Tony. "I am the CEO of one of the most innovative and successful companies on Earth, and I'm still serving coffee to scientists."

Tony just grinned at her, sipped the coffee, and resumed his tinkering. Bruce took two mugs from the tray Pepper was holding and handed one to Fitz. "Thank you, Pepper."

"Yes, thank you _very_ much, ma'am." Fitz tapped his fingers on the mug, smiling anxiously, then went back to studiously examining every gadget and scrap of tech around him.

Pepper rolled her eyes, took her own mug, and set the tray down. "Other than Tony, everyone ends up toting coffee in this tower."

Bruce chuckled. "It's true."

Butterfingers wheeled up to Fitz seeming very much like a curious and friendly pet. Fitz patted the bot's boom arm, turned, set his coffee down, and leaned on the nearest work bench with a sigh. Tony glanced at him. "You okay, kid?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. It's just, I've seen a lot of agent/agent conflict since March and a lot of it ended badly so the, uh, argument from the roof is just—it's irrational, I know, but I'm a little worried about Coulson."

Tony let out a bark of laughter. "You're joking. That? That was just a lovers' spat, a pretty tame one, actually. Pepper's done me worse over much smaller lies."

Pepper sipped her coffee. "I've thrown shoes at him."

"Yes, she has, and I deserved it." Tony poked at a computer screen. "In my expert opinion, everybody's favorite G-man is either apologizing profusely or having his bones jumped."

Fitz made a face. "I...absolutely cannot imagine Coulson having sex and I don't particularly want to."

"I can't imagine him not in a suit so I'm with you on that one." Tony bent over his work.

Bruce and Pepper shared a look. Pepper dropped her face into one hand, not sure if she should laugh or hit Tony over the head.

"Excuse me," Jarvis said from the ceiling, distracting Pepper from her cognitive dissonance. "You may all want to return upstairs. Miss Simmons has things to discuss."

* * *

"So," Simmons said, perched on the arm of a couch, pulling off a pair of purple nitrile exam gloves, "what's good news and what's bad news is all rather relative so I'm not going to even try to divvy things up that way so sorry if things get confusing. Sergeant Barnes—that's what Jarvis calls him, so that's what I'm going to call him—doesn't have any serious physical injuries. Some scratches and bruises, bit of a strained muscle in his left shoulder which I suspect is at least partially due to the weight of his prosthetic."

She glanced at Steve. "We did, unfortunately, have to sedate him in order for me to finish my examination, which I'm not overly fond of, especially given that he's been sedated several times in the past few days, but as I'm sure everyone knows by now, he is unstable and potentially extremely dangerous. Best I can tell, his brain is trying to repair what Hydra did to him—that is to say, it's trying to undo decades of brainwashing, mind control, and memory wipes—which is not fun at all. What he's going through right now can probably best be described as severe PTSD combined with reverse Alzheimer's.

"He's getting stuck in memories, which can be dangerous to all of us when he's living a memory of him being Hydra. When he's stuck in the nineteen-thirties, it's mostly just disorienting for him and, well, somewhat distressing for Captain Rogers." She fiddled with her sleeve. "When he isn't stuck in a memory, he is aware of what he's going through. I witnessed this myself just for a minute before he lapsed into some Soviet-era memory and tried to cause me severe bodily harm. He didn't seem to be sure quite where he was but he knew who, well, who Steve was and knew that Steve had brought him here. He knew that he didn't reliably know what was going on. That's actually a good sign.

"The question, of course, is: what can be done to help him? As has already been suggested by Agent Hill—" she ignored Maria's interjection that she wasn't an agent "—hiring a trained therapist would be a very good idea. What he's experiencing isn't purely psychological, though. There are physical and biochemical aspects to this. Making sure he stays well fed is a good start. Other than that," she punctuated her sentence with a shrug, "I've read about medical trials using hyperbaric chambers with increased oxygen levels to treat stroke victims even years after the fact, and it helps them. It would probably be beneficial for Sergeant Barnes as well.

"PTSD has been connected to demethylation in the brain, and consuming foods or dietary supplements containing methyl donors has been proven to ease symptoms. Since I don't see him being readily willing to swallow pills right now, that would be best taken care of dietarily. And, this sounds ridiculous even in my own head, but for reasons of brain chemistry, it would almost certainly be good for him to pet kittens or something, or have a good shag, but until he's more stable either one would be inadvisable as we wouldn't want him killing kittens or whoever he'd be shagging." She cleared her throat awkwardly. "So that's how things stand."

"Well," Tony said, "guess I'm buying a hyperbaric chamber."

"I actually know a good therapist in town," Pepper provided. "She specializes in couples' therapy for veterans and their partners. Sounds like that's as close to what Barnes needs as you're going to find."

Tony gave her a look. "Why do you know a couples' therapist?"

"Because, until I had the whole Winter Soldier thing explained to me, you were the most emotionally damaged thing I could think of without delving into fictional characters."

"I have no comeback for that one."

"Yeah, didn't think so." She reached out and patted his arm.

* * *

With Steve waiting for Barnes to wake up, Jemma and Tony sitting on one couch working on ordering a hyperbaric chamber off the internet, Maria on the phone with the suggested therapist, and Pepper and Bruce gone to get more coffee, Fitz was left to sit on the other couch, by himself, feeling distinctly useless. He'd started looking up methyl donors on his phone just to have something halfway prudent to do when Coulson walked in wearing jeans and a black t-shirt. Everyone, including the recently returned Bruce and Pepper, looked up. Tony made a sound through his nose. "So that's what you look like not in a suit."

Fitz focused on his phone, muttering under his breath, "That's not his shirt, that is not his shirt, I wish I could believe that was his shirt," and hoping no one could hear what he was saying.

Still on the phone, Maria shrugged one shoulder. Ignoring everyone else in the room, Coulson looked to Pepper. "Bring me up to speed?"

"Of course."

A few minutes later, Clint came in and plopped on the couch next to Tony, absently cracking his knuckles. Coulson pretended not to notice and continued his conversation with Pepper. Jemma let out a breath. "This isn't awkward at all..."

"Nope, not _at all_." Tony pointed at the screen between them. "That looks less claustrophobic."

Clint tilted his head to see the screen. "That doesn't look like hearing aids."

Tony turned to face Clint. "It's been three hours since I told you I needed another day and you are not my only project right now."

"It's been three hours and my reasons for being impatient have multiplied."

With a long suffering sigh, Coulson turned and signed something. Clint held up a backward peace sign, which caused a muscle in Coulson's jaw to twitch and made Jemma and Fitz both sit up straighter. Jemma coughed uncomfortably. Tony looked between the four agents that didn't work for him. "I definitely just missed something."

Clint put his feet up on the table. "The zombie over there needs to not be telling me to lay off, and I'm going to assume these two are British because on this side of the pond we do this," he held up one middle finger, "on that side of the pond they do that," he did the backward peace sign again. "Both gestures come from archery, and I like this one better because it's how I shoot."

Steve appeared in the hallway and was paid absolutely no mind.

"I hope you know you're being _very_ mature, Clinton." Coulson sounded exasperated.

"What was that?" Clint leaned forward mockingly, putting his feet back on the floor. "I can't hear you."

"Good thing you can read lips, then," Coulson retorted.

Tony got up. Bruce looked at him. "Where are you going?"

"To make popcorn. This is like Jerry Springer, but better because they're both trained killers."

"Tony, sit down," Pepper snapped. "Phil, Clint, no one doubts the validity of your dispute here, but there are serious things going on, so if you could please save the private matters for sometime other than now." Everything was quiet for a minute. "Thank you." She walked across the room to talk to Steve about maybe getting chewable children's vitamins for Barnes. It worked on Tony, she reasoned, ought to work on the sergeant.

Clint started flipping through apps on his phone. "Line between private and work gets blurry when you're sleeping with your handler and your job stops existing."

Coulson made a sound in his throat. Maria smacked her hand on the back of the couch and whistled through her fingers loud enough that Clint looked up and everyone else cringed or covered their ears. She signed as she spoke. "This is crazy. Clint, you're being crazy. Okay, he should have told you he was alive. I don't care if you're pissed. I'd be pissed, too. But it's your problem, not ours. There's a damn couples' therapist on her way here right now if you don't think you can act like the grown, professional men you are and work this out." She took a deep breath and folded her hands. "Pepper, Captain, if you're taking a field trip to the healthfood store, you should probably take Simmons with you."

* * *

**A/N: So Clint and Coulson are sort of taking over this fic right now... That was not the plan.  
Anyway, all of Simmons' medi-babble is real legit medical stuff and that makes me happy.  
As always, reviews appreciated, questions welcomed.**


	6. Chapter 6

"Let me make it very clear why you're here right now." Maria crossed her arms and leaned casually on the desk. She had temporarily taken over one of the downstairs offices to brief the shrink. "Pepper recommended you, which counts for quite a bit. Also, because Stark has better resources than Google, I found your thesis on memory loss and recovery. _That_ is why you're here."

Dr. Erin Mockta, a pretty but serious looking woman with distinctly Native American coloring, smiled thinly. "Glad my university work is still doing some good."

"Mhm. I'm sure you saw the news a month ago when three flying aircraft carriers crashed into the Potomac."

"I think everyone on Earth, and some people a little farther afield, saw that."

"An accurate assessment." One of Maria's eyebrows ticked upwards. "Well, the people behind that whole fiasco had a hit man known as the Winter Soldier. The Winter Soldier is James Buchanan—or Bucky—Barnes, Captain America's childhood friend. He's in our custody, and he's been through hell. We're talking brainwashing, memory wipes, indoctrination. He's been put in cryogenic stasis, quite probably against his will. He's killed a lot of people, but not of his own volition. To top it all off, he was in World War Two. He's a mess. We're working the physical healing. Piecing his mind back together is your job and Stark is paying you an awful lot for it."

Dr. Mockta nodded slowly. "I understand."

"I warn you, he can get quite violent. He's been fragmenting, getting stuck in memories similar to how Alzheimer's patients do. We've had to sedate him several times to keep him from hurting people."

"Don't sedate him. I can't work with him if he's out."

"Doctor, he has a metal arm and superhuman strength. When he gets aggressive—"

"Ms. Hill, most of my work is with veterans. I'm no stranger to hot tempers, aggression, or metal limbs. Superstrength is a new one but it was a matter of time in this crazy world. I am ready to wait for him to calm down, and if he's not going to calm down, I'll leave the room. Sedating him is unhelpful and may even be harmful."

Maria nodded once. "Yes, ma'am. There's another difficulty in that he isn't reliably speaking English. Depending on where he is in his own head, he's been lapsing into Russian, German, and occasionally French. Sometimes if you start using English, he'll switch, but you can't count on it."

"Can you translate?"

"Yes."

"Then I don't see a problem." Dr. Mockta smiled.

#

Steve frowned at a bottle of mango flavored vitamin gummies in his hand. "What is this?"

Jemma glanced at the bottle. "B-complex." She dropped a tub of amino acid powder into the handbasket she was holding. "It's good for the brain. He needs good for the brain. Nerves need vitamin B to heal."

Pepper walked up with another bottle of gummies. "I can't find just zinc, but these are C plus zinc."

"Good enough." Jemma took the bottle and started explaining before Steve had a chance to ask. "Zinc is a methyl donor. It helps reverse the demethylation connected to PTSD. Honestly, you and Stark and even Barton and Banner should really be taking zinc if you aren't. I've been sneaking it into Coulson's food since I joined his team. He doesn't like pills, most agents don't like pills. It can be problematic. Anybody see co-Q-10? Bottle might say ubiquinol, two names for the same thing."

Steve scanned the shelves and found the correct thing. "Here it is." He handed it over. "People didn't used to buy stuff like this. We just ate."

"Generally speaking, you ate better than we do now. Fast food is a detriment to the health of the human race." Jemma looked around the vitamin section of the little healthfood store. "He's going to need much higher doses than they make these gummies in, but we can just give him lots of gummies. I think we've got everything he needs that they make in a form where you don't have to swallow a pill, so I guess we're done."

"Unless, Steve?" Pepper asked. "Does he have a favorite food we could pick up? Like you, he seems to need to eat more than average and it would be good to get something he likes. Make life easier for everyone."

Steve shrugged. "He's always liked lasagna but there's the problem of forks being weaponizable."

Pepper shook her head. "This place sells ready to shove in the oven lasagna and we can buy plastic forks."

#

Dr. Mockta let Maria close the door while she sat on the floor with Barnes. "Good afternoon, I'm Dr. Mockta."

He studied her and his eyes flicked momentarily to Maria before returning. "Are you going to ask me questions?"

"Some questions, yes."

"People keep asking me questions."

"Does that bother you?"

Barnes hesitated. "I don't like not knowing the answers."

"I'm here to help with that. Do you want me to help you?"

For a long moment, he considered her. "Yeah."

"I need to ask you some things so I can help, but then we can just talk, okay?"

"Okay."

Dr. Mockta folded open a notebook. "What's your name?"

"James."

The doctor's pen made a few loops across the page. "Well, James, what are you doing here?"

It took him a minute to answer. "Steve brought me here."

"Who's Steve?"

A slightly shorter pause this time. "My friend."

"Do you know what happened to you?"

The silence stretched out until Maria started to think they'd lost him again. Then Barnes took a breath. "Some of it. Not clearly."

"Okay."

He eyed her. "Do you want me to tell you about it?"

"Do you want to?"

"No."

"Then not right now."

#

Standing in front of the refrigerator case of ready made meals, Steve frowned. "How many different kinds of lasagna are there?"

"I'm counting six here." Jemma picked up a family sized beef lasagna and put it in the cart they'd replaced the handbasket with. "I've had others, though. People get creative with lasagna." She paused and looked at Pepper. "We've got two super soldiers, one of whom is healing, and five other grown men on hand."

"Two of whom are geniuses whose brains guzzle calories like hummers guzzle gas, plus you and me and Maria." Pepper turned to gently shoo away a couple of starstruck looking college kids then returned to the conversation as though nothing had happened. "Yes, we're a tough group to keep fed." She grabbed two other lasagnas. "Get one of each. Steve, you like pizza?"

"Pizza's good. Tony ordered pizza the night I got here."

Pepper made a soft sound of amusement. "We can do better than delivery." She reached up to grab a stack of ready to bake pizzas. "Might want to talk Tony into hiring a cook again—last three quit because Tony's houses kept getting attacked—but in the meantime, we have two perfectly good ovens."

Steve helped her get a dozen different pizzas into the cart. "I think we need another cart."

When they finally got to checkout, the poor cashier was a little overwhelmed. Considering she was faced with Captain America and the CEO of Stark Industries and two shopping carts worth of gummy vitamins, lasagnas, pizzas, potato salad, meatloaf, barbecue and at least a dozen other ready made meals, she had every right to be. She took the credit card Pepper handed her without question. She glanced tentatively at Steve and slipped a smartphone out of her pocket. "Would it be okay if, I mean, could I—"

Steve shared a look first with Pepper, then with Simmons. "You can take a picture."

The girl made a high pitched sound of excitement and darted around the counter.

#

Maria watched Dr. Mockta watch Barnes stare out the window. It had been been a while since he'd blinked and several minutes since he'd moved. The doctor, perched in the chair that used to go with the desk, had folded her hands in her lap and seemed content to wait. Maria was mildly impressed. When Barnes finally blinked himself back to awareness, Dr. Mockta clicked her pen open. "You back with us?"

He looked at her. Then the pillow from behind him went flying across the room.

It hit her in the face with a thump. She let it fall to the floor, holding up a staying hand to Maria, meeting her patient's gaze. "Feel better?"

He bared his teeth, chest heaving with agitated breath, and barked out a word in Russian. Maria bowed her head. "That was a curse word."

"I figured." Dr. Mockta leaned back in her chair without looking away from Barnes. "Do you want your pillow back?"

Barnes's eyes flickered momentarily to the pillow at her feet. There was a pause. "Nyet."

"Okay." She crossed her ankles. "Are you going to speak English?"

He actually smirked. "Nyet."

"That's fine, use whatever language you're comfortable with. Do you remember what we were talking about?"

It took him a while to answer. "...nyet."

"Baseball. We were talking about baseball."

He stared at her blankly.

She made a note. "Do you want to talk about something else?"

"Da..."

"Okay. What then?"

He studied her a minute. "Vy lyubite pivo?"

Maria suppressed a snicker and translated. "Do you like beer?"

Dr. Mockta grinned. "Yes, I do. Do you?"

#

With the tower's current inhabitants arrayed around her on the common room sofas, Erin Mockta steepled her fingers together and let out a breath. "Let's start with, that could have gone much worse. You're down an office chair and may shortly be down a bedframe but the worst he directed at me was a pillow, so that's good. You can't keep him locked in that bedroom, though. He needs opportunities to work out his feelings in safe, non-harmful ways. Non-harmful doesn't mean non-destructive, by the way. Breaking things can be extremely therapeutic, especially for men since they tend to be more physical than women. It's a good way to channel aggression." She folded her hands in her lap and looked at Tony. "I would highly suggest re-furnishing his room with soft things. Beanbag chairs, mattress on the floor, no bedframe. Create an environment where he can lash out safely, because he is going to lash out, he needs to. He needs to process what's happened to him, what he's done, and what his situation is now. It's a lot to work through, and he can't _really_ work through it until he's more together." She propped an elbow on the arm of the sofa. "He needs support. You all need to not treat him like a burden. I have other appointments." She stood. "But once he's settled down, unlock that damn door. Captain, since he's your friend, I expect you'll be working with him the most. Feel free to call me." She made for the elevator. "I'll see myself out."

After the doctor had left, Maria cleared her throat. "I think there's more online shopping to do."

"On it." Jemma picked a tablet up off the coffee table.

With a nod and a sigh, Steve got to his feet.

* * *

**A/N: The character of Erin Mockta is being borrowed from my friend, Megan. Thank you, Megan, for letting her reality hop to my story.  
Anyway, as always, reviews appreciated, questions welcomed.**


	7. Chapter 7

Jemma looked up from her Cocoa Puffs at the sound of footsteps on the kitchen floor. Coulson came and sat across the island from her, frowning into a paper coffee cup with two neat, three pointed starburst holes punched through it, one directly across from the other. Jemma set her spoon down. "So, I guess Agent Barton's still mad at you..."

"Well, he didn't shoot me, just my coffee, so I'm going to take that as a good sign." He set the cup down with a sigh. "Honestly, I'm surprised he was even awake yet."

"Most everyone seems to be up already, actually. Miss Potts was just about to go downstairs to her office when I got here. Sergeant Barnes seems to have had a bit of a fit sometime before dawn and Steve's with him in—apparently there's a dojo in the building and Mr. Stark has piles of failed prototypes and out of date electronics, so Steve is supervising smashing things. Dr. Banner is up, too, he came through a few minutes ago to bring a pan of lasagna for Steve and Barnes."

Coulson blinked a couple times. "I feel like some part of that should strike me as odd."

"But it doesn't?" Jemma smiled.

"No, it doesn't." He got up to poke at the coffee machine. "Well this cost more than Clint's Keurig..."

"It will give you a fairly normal cup of coffee if you just press that round button on the right with the ring of blue around it. Took me ages to figure that out." She got up to help him. "What do you mean, Keurig?"

"Barton has apparently dropped by enough times during layovers that he has his own room here, and he has a Keurig."

Jemma paused. "Are you sharing his room?"

"Uh, yes."

She glanced at the purple argyle pants he was wearing. "Are those his pajamas?"

"Yes," he sighed, "they are."

She put a knuckle to her lips for a moment. "I'd say that's sweet, but he also put an arrow through your coffee, and that is decidedly not sweet."

"The phrase you're looking for is 'mixed signals.'" He took his new mug of coffee and sat back down.

She returned to her stool and took up her spoon. "Are you okay?"

He sipped his coffee. "I've been worse. Are you okay?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"It doesn't bother you, that I'm—"

"What? No, no, of course not! I mean it was a bit of a surprise, I'd never thought—then again, why would I have though? You're my boss—or you were, I guess—it would be inappropriate. Not that I think it's inappropriate that you're—its just, I mean," she took a breath. "I should stop talking."

"Yes, you probably should."

"I'm sorry, I said all of that wrong." She carded her fingers through her ponytail. "What I mean to say is that no, it doesn't bother me. You're my superior and, in all honesty, a bit of a father figure—I never gave any thought to the reality of you being in a relationship, beyond the occasional mention of your 'cellist.' Very clever cover, by the way."

He chuckled into his mug. "Clint's idea."

She reached across the island and put her hand over his. "I'm happy for you. And maybe a little bit envious."

"Thank you, Jemma. I appreciate that you, at least, don't mind."

"Fitz doesn't, either. I think he's just hit his limit of how much he can process right now. We've all been through a lot." She squeezed his hand. "Clint, too. I'm sure he just needs time to figure out how everything stands right now."

"You're good at this whole reassurance thing."

"I'm the chronically single friend, I have lots of experience with other people's boy troubles."

They grinned at each other.

* * *

Steve passed an already cracked tablet to Bucky and took another bite of lasagna. Bucky tossed the tablet into the air, and jumped to put his foot through it, making it shatter. It had taken about two tries to work out that the padded walls and floor of the dojo were bad for smashing things against, so Bucky had taken to more creative ways of destroying Tony's garbage. He stooped to examine the shrapnel with a feral grin that made Steve more than a little uncomfortable. At least it was a smile.

"Do you want any more to eat?" Steve held out a plastic plate of lasagna. Bucky looked up, made a quiet sound in his throat, and took the plate. Steve huffed out a breath that wasn't quite a sigh. He hadn't really expected an actual answer—Bucky had only spoken a few words since he'd woken around four, and none of what he _had_ said was in English—but Steve was still holding out hope that they might have an actual conversation. He picked up some sort of foot-wide puck thing from the pile of not yet destroyed things. "Do you have any idea what this is?"

Bucky glanced up and shrugged, muttering in French through his pasta.

"Oh, we're speaking French now?" Steve was grateful for S.H.I.E.L.D. financed language lessons. "_I can speak French._"

"Hm." Bucky set his plate aside, picked up the puck thing and flung it at the wall. It bounced off and clattered to the floor. He retrieved it and tossed it into Steve's lap. "_You throw it._"

Steve turned the puck over in his hands. According to a silkscreened logo on its top, it was a Roomba but Steve had no idea what that was supposed to mean. With a flick of his wrist he threw it at the wall like he would his shield. It bounced to the floor again.

Again, Bucky retrieved it and dropped it in Steve's lap. "_To me_."

"_I'm not going to throw it at you_."

Bucky raised an eyebrow at him in this look that was both questioning and knowing, and just for a moment—with no French or Russian or German hanging in the air, and Bucky turned so that Steve could't quite see the metal arm and the red star—things felt almost normal. The corner of Steve's mouth twitched up into the barest hint of a smile. He picked up the puck and slung it at Bucky, whose fist connected with the thing in mid air, cracking the plastic casing like an egg and sending mechanical odds and ends skittering across the matting. Bucky scooped up a wheel-shaped brush thing that had rolled against his foot. Steve watched him twirl it between his fingers. "Is this helping you at all?"

Bucky looked up, a stringy strand of hair falling in his face, and didn't say anything. For a long minute, he just frowned, then he lifted one shoulder in a shrug, kicked part of the Roomba unceremoniously out of his way, and went to pull something else out of the pile to destroy. Steve poked uninterestedly at his lasagna with his fork. The moment of near normalcy was gone as though it had never happened but, Steve hoped, it was a good sign.


End file.
